Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3)

by Finlayson, Marina

  So bailing was out. Besides, if I bailed, what would happen to the three unconscious thralls? Leaving them here to die seemed kind of cold-blooded.

  Okay, so no bailing. And taking the controls and flying us safely back home was definitely out. So that left reviving the pilots.

  I’d already established that slapping and yelling made no difference, so I laid my hands on the head of the younger of the two and closed my eyes. Inside his mind I found him wandering, lost and bereft. Gently I coaxed him toward me, guiding and cajoling. His mind was damaged, torn loose from its guiding light, and I worked to mend it, rebuilding connections, soothing the hurt.

  I don’t know how long I stood there, lost in his pain. It couldn’t have been very long, but it felt like an eternity before I secured him to me. His eyes snapped open, wide with wonder.

  “Mistress.” He bowed deeply in his seat.

  Now that I had him enthralled, we could have communicated through our bond, at least in a basic way, but as it turned out he spoke English. I suppose he had to, as a pilot. Thank goodness for small mercies.

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you well?”

  “I felt her die.” He frowned at the remembered pain.

  How long ago had Toko made that call to Kasumi? She hadn’t wasted any time. My stomach clenched into a tight knot of apprehension. She’d better not have allowed her desire for revenge on Daiyu to jeopardise my son. Not when I was so close to getting him back.

  Because clearly there had been some A-grade revenge going down. The only reason for Daiyu’s thralls to have all collapsed into unconsciousness was the sudden severing of the bond with their mistress. Daiyu was dead, presumably at the hands of a certain vengeful kitsune. Just another reminder that kitsune made great allies but really sucky enemies.

  So now I had a co-pilot at least. I left him to get on with flying the plane, gritted my teeth, and dived into the mind of his companion.

  This was harder going. This man’s mind had been blown apart by the loss of Daiyu. Grimly I set about finding the pieces. I hated having thralls, yet here I was again, adding to their number.

  Or at least trying to. Even in my trance-like state, I could feel sweat trickling down my face at the effort. It was like trying to piece a shattered mirror back together with plasticine, clumsy and awkward. And I couldn’t even find all the shards of his mind. It was as if he was resisting me, kicking missing pieces under the furniture where I couldn’t see them. As if he wanted to die.

  At last I had to give in. I came back to myself and looked down at the grey hairs, the wrinkles on the slack, unconscious face. This man must have been enthralled to Daiyu for a long time. The death of his mistress had driven him beyond my reach. There was no way to put him back together.

  Even as I watched, his breathing became fainter. There was no struggle; he just slipped away.

  The co-pilot looked at him uncertainly, then up at me for guidance.

  “Looks like you’re on your own. Do we have enough fuel to get to Sydney?”

  “Of course, mistress. That is our destination.”

  Well, that was something, at least. Akira must have been planning to deliver our corpses to his lover. I left the cockpit and went to check on Luce. There was no fresh blood on her bandages, and she was breathing more easily, but her scaled face had an odd colour to it. Silver poisoning. Four bullets would have her out of action for a while. Thank God she wasn’t a werewolf, or she’d be dead already. But no other shifters suffered the extreme reaction to silver that werewolves did.

  I flopped into the seat next to the stewardess and eased into her mind, feeling the strain. Putting people back together was hard work, and after the excitement of the last few days all I wanted to do was put my head down and get some sleep.

  Thankfully this woman was not as far gone as the older man, not even as much of a challenge as our other pilot. Once she was awake I untied her and got her to help me shift Luce into a more comfortable position. Then I settled down, the hum of the engines lulling me to sleep.

  I woke once and saw that Luce had recovered her human form. Her face was flushed and sweaty with silver fever, but it was a good sign that her body had eased out of trueshape. The stewardess had covered her with a blanket and slipped a pillow under her dark head. I watched her for a while until sleep overtook me again. I was too tired to plan what came next.

  But there’d better be a reunion with my son in the very near future, or all the kitsune magic in the world wouldn’t save Kasumi.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  There’s nothing like the feeling when Sydney appears out the plane window, the familiar buildings, the deep blue waters of the harbour. Even the horrible, traffic-choked roads look better from the air when you’re arriving home, especially when the sun’s just gone down and all the streetlights are twinkling, marking the roads with strings of orange lights. Home. This place was it, whichever house I happened to be living in this week, because the people I loved were here. Lachie was here, waiting for me. I refused to contemplate anything else. I’d see his sweet pointed face again, and get to wrap his skinny body in my arms. And all the members of my crew I’d grown so close to over the past crazy few weeks would be waiting: Steve, the big half-Maori who looked so scary until he smiled, Dave with his determination to feed me up, sad Mac with her brave pink hair, and, of course, Garth.

  Garth. Just the thought of him made my heart speed up a little. I stared out the window as the plane circled in for a landing. So close now. Soon, I could feel the sheltering warmth of his arms, lose myself in those moody grey eyes. But first: Lachie. He’d only been stolen a few days ago, but it felt much longer. We were still catching up on all the months we’d missed when I’d thought him dead. He’d changed so much in the time we’d been apart. His face had thinned out, and he’d gotten taller, though the curls were still as wild as ever. I couldn’t bear for him to do any more growing up without me.

  We bumped down onto the tarmac, the engines roaring. Luce was awake, strapped into the seat next to me now.

  “You okay?”

  She looked awful, trembling and grey, clutching a sick bag in one hand, just in case. Silver fever had her in its grip. Wyverns, like dragons, didn’t suffer too badly from silver poisoning, but a couple of days of violent illness followed by several more of general misery was the usual. Add to that the drain on her body of repairing the damage from the gunshot wounds, and Luce was in for a bad few days.

  “I’ll live.” She pressed her lips together, as if risking any more words might encourage another bout of vomiting.

  The plane seemed to taxi forever. Impatient, I undid my seat belt and jumped out of my seat, almost twitching as I waited for the stewardess to open the door. Clear skies and a welcome rush of heat greeted us, and I stood on the top step, shading my eyes against the glare from the lights, breathing in that distinctive airport smell of kerosene.

  A limousine waited on the tarmac, a familiar hulking figure lounging against it, arms folded. It did my heart good to see that lazy smile again, but his wasn’t the face I was most interested in seeing. Where was Lachie?

  As I hurried down the stairs, the car’s back door was flung open and a small figure leapt out.

  “Mum!”

  My feet hardly touched the ground as I closed the distance between us and caught him in my arms. I buried my face in his curls and took a deep breath of his beloved scent. Thank God he was safe. My eyes stung with happy tears as my body relearned his scrawny shape: the way his head just tucked under my chin, the feel of his skinny arms wrapped around my waist. He was the sun my world revolved around.

  “Hey, Monster!” I blinked away the tears before he saw them. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  Talk about the understatement of the year. But my heart was too full to tell him everything it held. I’d lost him once, and I never wanted to go through that agony again.

  I held him away from me, checking him over. There were shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t
been sleeping well, but he appeared unharmed. Just as well. Nothing on earth could have saved Jason if he’d let harm come to this precious boy.

  “I’m glad to see you too. I didn’t like those people with Dad. Everyone kept talking in Japanese and there was nothing to do there except watch TV.”

  I kissed his curly head. “I thought you would have loved that. Since when have you not liked watching TV?”

  “Yeah, but not all the time. And the food wasn’t half as good as Dave’s cooking.”

  “We’ll have to get some more of that into you. You’re so skinny! Have you grown?”

  He drew himself up taller and eyed my shoulder, then ran a hand from the top of his head to see where he came up to on me. The angle at which he moved his hand wasn’t even close to horizontal, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Garth grinning, but I kept a straight face. God, I loved this boy.

  “Yeah, I think I might have.”

  Car doors slammed as Steve and Mac joined Garth. I grinned at them all over Lachie’s curly head. “Well, I’m sure Dave will be pleased to hear how highly you think of his cooking.”

  “He already thinks he’s God’s gift to cuisine,” Mac said. “His head will get so big it’ll explode.”

  “We can’t have that. Steve might have to cook then.”

  “You’re doomed,” said the big half-Maori, with that slow grin that lit his whole face. “I can’t cook for shit. Good to have you back, boss.”

  “Good to be back. Give Luce a hand, will you? She’s hurt.”

  He moved off, and Garth raised an eyebrow, his grey eyes sharp. “Did you have much trouble?”

  His eyes roved across my body, checking for injury, though he didn’t stir. He still leaned against the car, arms folded across his chest.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle. Relax.”

  He snorted. “Look at me. I’m relaxed. I’ve never been so relaxed.”

  “They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, you know.”

  “Is that so?”

  His lip curled, and an urge to bite it shot through me. Damn, but he looked good. With his arms crossed like that, his muscles bulged enough to make Jean Claude van Damme jealous. I turned Lachie toward the car and gave him a gentle push, my hands lingering on his narrow shoulders. I wanted to keep touching him, to reassure myself he was real.

  “Everything all right here?”

  “Just peachy. Daiyu’s dead—”

  “I figured that when her thralls went catatonic on me. What about Jason?”

  “Far as I know he’s still alive and kicking. Kasumi’s gone inside to handle the paperwork. You can ask her when she gets back.”

  Shame. I looked a little guiltily at my son. Was it wrong to wish a horrible fate on his father?

  “Any progress on the negotiations?”

  I’d left Mac and Yarrow in charge of liaising with Valiant. My sisters seemed to be on board with the idea of sharing the domain of Oceania in principle. The issue was in carving up the cake.

  “Mac’s been tearing her hair out.”

  “We’re getting close to an agreement,” Mac said. “Hope is holding out for a bigger slice of the pie, but I reckon she’s weakening. Said she wants to talk to you about it, though. Doesn’t like dealing with a lowly werewolf.”

  “Figures.”

  Dragons and their self-importance. These girls weren’t even twenty, but they’d been brought up to believe the sun shone out of their own arses. I suppose I should be amazed that Mac had made any progress at all.

  A familiar figure headed across the tarmac toward us, her strides brisk and purposeful. The red tips of her black hair waved in the light breeze, like fireflies buzzing around her head. If she’d been disguised as an official before, she’d given it up in favour of her own black-clad form. It was like a uniform for her. Must get hot sometimes. One day I’d like to see her in a sundress, or a pair of shorts, just for kicks. Probably wouldn’t recognise her.

  I turned as the stewardess cleared her throat at my elbow. She offered me the carved wooden box that had held the hoshi no tama with a small bow.

  “Oh, yes, we have some new recruits.” I took the box from her, wincing a little at her swollen face. “Send a car for them when they’re finished here, would you? And get this poor woman some medical attention.”

  Garth nodded, finally unfolding his arms. He opened the back door so Steve could help Luce inside. Kasumi reached us, her eyes glued to the box I held.

  “Is that—?”

  For answer I lifted the lid, showing her the empty interior, its dark silk indented with the shapes of the glowing yellow balls it had so recently held.

  “All safely restored to their owners.”

  She drew a sharp breath, then looked up at me, her dark eyes swimming.

  “You have freed our people. We can never repay you.”

  Her hands were actually trembling as she reached out. I placed the box gently in them.

  “Seems like you made a pretty good down payment already.” I nodded in Lachie’s direction. He was chatting animatedly to Mac, probably about Lego. “Thank you for rescuing my son.”

  She gave me a fierce grin. “And for killing Daiyu?”

  “That too.” That hadn’t been part of the arrangement, but I’d be lying if I said I was sorry she was gone. It certainly made my life easier. And it was about time we had a win.

  “The wolf was concerned at the risk to the boy.” She cast her usual aloof glance at Garth, all sign of tears gone. “But I was careful. He was never in danger.”

  “I’m very grateful.”

  Garth had a mulish look on his face. It was pretty much a permanent fixture when Kasumi was around. These two had never liked each other. But it lifted my heart to hear he’d had the same concerns for Lachie that I’d had, and I gave him a warm smile. His answering one nearly sucked all the air out of my lungs. God, he was gorgeous.

  It was fortunate they’d brought the limo. I’d never seen it before, so it must have been one of Elizabeth’s. There could be anything lurking in those massive garages of hers. She’d probably had a fleet of them, knowing her. Steve drove, and Mac sat up front with him, which left Garth, Lachie, Luce, Kasumi and me in the back. There was still enough room for a phone and a small bar, not that any of us were drinking, though Lachie gave it a wistful glance. Probably hoping for something sweet and fizzy.

  “Tell me what’s been happening,” I said as we left the airport behind. I had Lachie on one side and Garth on the other. My two favourite guys in all the world. “How’s Blue going with those glasses I ordered?”

  “Blue’s gone.” Garth’s muscular thigh pressed against my leg made it hard to concentrate. I was hyper aware of him. “Took the glasses he was making with him, too, though he didn’t manage to find the original pair.”

  “Gone? Gone where?”

  “God knows. I sent a couple of guys to check that cave of his but there was no sign of him.”

  “Damn.” There would be a lot of shifters at the coronation that I didn’t trust, and being able to check that everyone was really who they said they were would have been handy. At least we still had the original pair, but one pair wasn’t going to go far enough. “Slippery little bugger. What did he have to run off now for? Was he drinking again?”

  “Not that I saw.”

  “You know what he’s like,” Mac said, turning around to join the conversation. “He can’t stand anyone telling him what to do.”

  “Sorry,” said Steve. His dark eyes met mine in the rear-vision mirror. “I should have kept a closer watch on him.”

  “It’s not your fault. There’s been a lot going on.”

  I sighed. We’d just have to manage. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time our plans had had to change at the eleventh hour. It was practically tradition.

  “Where are we up to with the negotiations on territories?”

  Mac filled me in on the details. It sounded like Valiant was well and truly on our side; she was pushin
g her sisters just as hard as we were to agree on the proposed split, which would see her with New Zealand as her territory.

  “You’ve done a great job,” I told her. “Let’s just hope the death of Daiyu doesn’t put us back at square one.”

  Kasumi stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we can’t leave Japan without a queen, or one of the other queens will just annex it. Probably Xu.” It would make sense for the Chinese queen to take over the Japanese domain, not only because of geographical proximity, but because Daiyu had been her sister.

  “The kitsune will not stand for another foreign dictator,” Kasumi warned, a scowl marring her pretty face.

  “I realise that.” Toko had left me in no doubt of the kitsune’s desire for autonomy. “But that’s dragons for you. None of them will respect the kitsune’s wishes, and then there will be bloodshed and upheaval. But I could annex it myself, and not interfere in the local politics, other than making sure the male dragons toe the line.”

  The scowl only lifted slightly. She didn’t seem to like that idea much better, but it seemed the best solution in the short term for the Japanese shifters. And the kitsune had already worked with me, and declared themselves eternally in my debt. I was sure we could work something out.

  “So what’s the problem?” Garth asked, ignoring Kasumi.

  “I suspect my sisters will object to me taking a whole new domain and still insisting on keeping New South Wales out of Oceania.” And there was no way I was giving up Sydney. “They may even think that the Japanese domain ought to be added to the pot to be shared out.”

  Kasumi glowered even more ferociously at that suggestion. Even Mac looked disconcerted, probably seeing all her good work hammering out an agreement disappearing down the drain.

  “You never know,” I consoled her. “Maybe they won’t see it that way.” Yeah, and pigs might fly. “Let’s hope it doesn’t derail our agreement.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY